Information Technology Issues in China

Information Technology Issues

in China

Jie Yu, Yue Guo, and Prashant Palvia

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October 9, 2019 13:44 The World IT Project: Global Issues. . . 9in x 6in b3634-ch06 2nd Reading page 1

Chapter 6

Information Technology Issuesin China

Jie Yu∗,§, Yue Guo†,¶ and Prashant Palvia‡,‖

∗University of Nottingham Ningbo China,Yinzhou Qu, Ningbo Shi, Zhejiang Sheng 315105, China

†King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK‡University of North Carolina at Greensboro,

1400 Spring Garden St, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA§[email protected]

¶[email protected]‖[email protected]

Summary

In this chapter, we provide important information technology (IT) issuesin China, such as organizational IT issues, technology issues, and indi-vidual issues. In the World IT Project survey, we recruited 310 IT work-ers in China. Most of the respondents were in their early career andworked full time in China’s IT organizations. The findings show thatthe most important IT-related organizational issues are: IT reliabilityand efficiency, security and privacy, and IT strategic planning. Amongtechnology issues, IT professionals identified the following issues as thetop concerns: networks/telecommunications, big data systems, data min-ing, software as a service, and business intelligence/analytics. Most ITemployees seem to be satisfied with their current jobs and felt a senseof accomplishment at work. Results further show that more than halfof the IT workers would not change their jobs in the short term andfelt secure in their current jobs. In addition, there were no significantwork–life conflicts among the surveyed IT employees.

1


2 J. Yu, Y. Guo & P. Palvia

6.1 Introduction

Information technology (IT) is advancing rapidly worldwide. The develop-ment of IT plays an important role in the economic and social developmentof nations. On the one hand, IT has positively affected people’s lives andhas brought significant advantages for business. On the other hand, thereare new challenges for IT management and staff. Previous studies haveprovided IT issues in organizations in some developed countries but thereis little literature investigating IT-related issues in China. Since differentcountries have different economic strategies and market characteristics, ITissues may vary in different countries and regions. Therefore, it seems worth-while to evaluate the important IT issues in China, such as organizationalIT issues, technology issues, and individual issues. The current chapter isdesigned to provide insights into IT-related issues of Chinese organizationsand their IT employees.

6.2 Country Background and History

China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is a country locatedin East Asia with a population of 1.4 billion. China (PRC) was establishedin 1949 and has reformed the economy and moved forward rapidly from atraditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society since 1978.In the past 40 years, the Chinese government has made every effort todevelop its industry and technology. To some extent, China has become anindustrialized country with a relatively low level of technology. China hasalso been investing in high-tech and advanced manufacturing industries inrecent years. For example, China has actively accelerated industrializationwith informatization and has attained great achievement in the IT industryin recent years, e.g., companies like Alibaba, JD, Tencent, and Xiaomi haveemerged. Along with the development of technology, there is increasinggrowth in China’s economy. According to nominal GDP in 2017, Chinawas the world’s second-largest economy (Fang et al., 2018).

6.3 Information Technology in China

China has gone through an impressive growth in the IT industry over thelast two decades. Due to reforms and opening-up policy, China has devel-oped informatization rapidly by allocating considerable resources to theIT industry. In recent years, the IT industry has become one of the pillar


Information Technology Issues in China 3

industries to promote economic development and social progress (Chismar,1996; Hanna and Qiang, 2011). Over the past 20 years, China has imple-mented several 5-year plans to promote the country to be a world-leaderand high-tech society through the development of its IT industry.

According to a recent survey, the number of China’s Internet users hasgrown steadily in the last decade and China had 772 million netizens bythe end of 2017 (China Internet Network Information Center, 2018). Mobilenetizens accounted for 97.5% of the total Internet users. As of December2017, the number of Internet companies that had gone public in eitherdomestic stock exchange markets or overseas stock exchange markets hasreached 102, with a total market value of RMB 8.97 trillion. There have been77 Chinese Internet and IT Unicorn Companies.1 The number of artificialintelligence (AI) enterprises has reached 592, accounting for 23.3% of theAI companies in the world.

In terms of e-commerce, the total retail sales of consumer goods inChina was RMB 7.18 trillion, accounting for 40% of the global online retailsales (China Internet Network Information Center, 2018). Digitization hasbrought both opportunities and challenges to Internet companies. For exam-ple, with advanced information technologies, online payment has quicklyreplaced traditional payment means of cash, while the issues of online pri-vacy and security have surged.

To conclude, China’s IT companies are continuously growing and the ITindustry has become the pillar of China’s economy. The IT industry is largeand complex and important to the world; so it is worthwhile to investigatethe IT-related issues in Chinese organizations.

6.4 Methodology

The standard English instrument from the World IT Project was translatedinto Chinese by a research assistant and then the Chinese version was backtranslated into English by another research assistant for assuring linguisticvalidity. The back-translation was compared with the original instrumentby two researchers. After several discussions, discrepancies were resolvedand the Chinese instrument was finalized.

1Internet and IT Unicorn Companies refer to Internet startups or IT startups valuedat more than $1 billion each.



Given the length of the survey, early attempts to collect data by hostingthe survey on an online service and inviting IT employees from companieswere not very successful. Therefore, one of the researchers contacted theMBA/EMBA center from the School of management of a renowned Chineseuniversity. Alumni of this center include many senior executives of vari-ous industries in major metropolitan cities of China (e.g., Wuhan, Suzhou,Shenzhen, Jinan, Nanjing, and Guangzhou). The researcher obtained theire-mail addresses from the Center’s alumni database. An invitation letterwas drafted which explained the objectives and target respondents forthe survey. The senior executives were requested to forward the invita-tion to their IT departments or IT teams. Another researcher contactedan IT professional headhunter company. With their help, every time theycontacted a candidate, they invited the candidate to participate in thesurvey. The data collection started in October 2016 and lasted for about2 months.

There was no specific incentive or bonus offered to participants. Eth-ical approval was obtained from the Hohai University Research EthicsCommittee. It was presented during the face-to-face interview and wasmade available if requested by online participants. Communication betweenthe investigators and the core World IT Project team were mainly viaemails.

The Chinese sample consisted of 310 IT employees. Nearly all subjectswere born in China and 65% were males. Most of the respondents wererelatively young. More specifically, more than half of these subjects (50.3%)were between 21 and 29 years of age and 31.9% were between 30 and 39 yearsof age. The most common job roles were programming (31.9%), systemanalysis and design (13.2%), financial (7.4%) and system administrator(7.1%). The majority of the respondents (56.1%) were non-managementemployees. Detailed statistics are shown in Table 6.1.

6.5 Organizational IT Issues

Around 18 organizational IT issues were rated by the respondents using a5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (of most importance) to 5 (of no impor-tance). Based on the average ratings, the eighteen organizational issues areranked from 1 to 18 and are shown in Table 6.2.

The findings indicate that IT reliability and efficiency is themost significant IT-related organizational issue. Security and pri-vacy is the second important organizational IT issue, followed by



Table 6.1: Descriptive Statistics

Characteristics N % Characteristics N %

Education: Years of Work Experience:High School or Less 7 2.3 0–4 Years 126 40.6Associate Degree 41 13.2 5–9 Years 89 28.7Bachelor’s Degree 169 54.5 10–19 Years 80 25.8Master’s Degree 83 26.8 20–29 Years 10 3.2PhD 10 3.2 30+ Years 5 1.6

Years of IT Experience: Organizational location:0–4 Years 162 52.3 IT Department Employee 212 68.45–9 Years 83 26.8 IT Worker in Non-IT 43 13.9

Department10–19 Years 62 20.0 Contract Employee 15 4.820–29 Years 2 0.6 Consultant 34 11.030+ Years 1 0.3 Vendor Employee 6 1.9

Work as: Work Position:Mostly Full Time 272 87.7 Not Part of Management 174 56.1Mostly Part Time 29 9.4 In Lower Management 59 19.0Mostly Over Time 9 2.9 In Middle Management 51 16.5

In Senior Management 26 8.4Been Laid Off from IT Job:Yes 76 24.5No 234 75.5

IT strategic planning, project management and continuity planningand disaster recovery. Globalization, bring your own computing device(BYOD) and outsourcing are the least important organizational issuesin rank.

In the era of informatization, reliable and efficient information technolo-gies are needed to improve employee’s work performance and enhance orga-nizations’ competitiveness. In China, economic and market reforms havegiven rise to companies with distinct types of ownership and cultures (Tsuiet al., 2006). The complex and nuanced organizational structures may posechallenges to the development of reliable and efficient information systems.Privacy and security are also very important with the booming develop-ment of IT and digitization. Privacy and security concerns exist whereverpersonal sensitive information is collected, used, stored and shared. Theera of IT and big data has arrived in China and is contributing in manyways to economic growth. As is the case, a large quantity of data regard-ing consumers’ personal information is a key asset for business firms andother organizations. However, the unauthorized or unintended sharing ofsuch data has led to privacy and security concerns. In recent years, China



Table 6.2: Organizational IT Issues in China

Organizational IT Issues Rank Mean Rating∗ Std. Deviation

IT reliability and efficiency 1 1.98 0.84Security and privacy 2 2.02 0.83IT strategic planning 3 2.04 0.86Project management 4 2.05 0.82Continuity planning and disaster recovery 5 2.09 0.84Alignment between IT and business 6 2.11 0.81Knowledge management 7 2.12 0.84Business productivity and cost reduction 8 2.13 0.81Revenue-generating IT innovations 9 2.14 0.79IT service management (e.g., ITIL) 10 2.15 0.85Attracting and retaining IT professionals 11 2.15 0.84Enterprise architecture 12 2.16 0.80Business agility and speed to market 13 2.17 0.85Business process reengineering 14 2.20 0.77IT cost reduction 15 2.23 0.88Globalization 16 2.25 0.89Outsourcing 17 2.55 0.88BYOD 18 2.61 0.93

∗Rating scale ranges from 1 to 5: 1 as most important and 5 as no importance.

has enacted regulations and laws in data privacy and security due to theincreasing awareness among people and organizations.

Driven by IT penetration and market-oriented development, IT strategicplanning plays an important role in enhancing economic competitiveness inChinese enterprises. Strategic planning is critical to organizations becauseit can provide the planners with a road map to get to where they want tobe. Strategic planning is also an important tool for motivating a team towork together and make decisions to achieve specific goals via a variety oftechniques. It is thus ranked high in our sample.

BYOD, which means employees can bring their own devices to theirworkplace, is the least important issue in the study. BYOD is an increasingtrend in the business world. One survey shows that 75% of respondentsin high growth markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, UAE and Malaysiause their personal device for work, while only 44% of employees in themore mature markets do so (Drury and Absalom, 2012). In our sample,the participants believe the issue of BYOD is much less important thanother priorities. Perhaps in the Chinese culture, employees are happy toaccept the flexibility provided by BYOD and do not care about the blurredboundaries between work and their own life.



6.6 Technology and Infrastructure Issues

Once again, the IT employees were asked to rate 16 technology relatedissues on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (of most importance) to5 (of no importance). Results are shown in Table 6.3. The top-five mostimportant issues are networks/telecommunications, big data systems, datamining, software as a service, and business intelligence/analytics.

China’s networks and telecommunications have been evolving since theearly 1990s and commercial access to the Internet has been available sincethen (Hanna and Qiang, 2011). With the increasing number of Internetaccess points and services, networks and telecommunications play a crit-ical role in the development of the Chinese economy. In the context ofinformatization, networks and telecommunications are important tools forbusiness. Telecommunication-based services can enable companies to com-municate effectively with customers and suppliers, and allow employees tocollaborate with each other regardless of their location.

Big data systems and data mining are ranked second and third highest.In the data-driven economy, the use of big data has been a vital way forleading corporations to outperform their competitors. Big data and datamining enable companies to analyze massive amounts of data and create

Table 6.3: Technology and Infrastructure Issues in China

Mean Std.IT Related Issues Rank Rating∗ Deviation

Networks/telecommunications 1 2.14 0.91Big data systems 2 2.16 0.89Data mining 3 2.19 0.90Software as a service 4 2.20 0.86Business intelligence/analytics 5 2.22 0.84Customer relationship management (CRM) systems 6 2.23 0.87Cloud computing 7 2.23 0.87Collaborative and workflow tools 8 2.23 0.82Business process management systems 9 2.24 0.83Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems 10 2.24 0.85Mobile and wireless applications 11 2.24 0.88Service-oriented architecture (SOA) 12 2.25 0.86Mobile apps development 13 2.26 0.90Enterprise application integration 14 2.28 0.84Virtualization (desktop or server) 15 2.28 0.86Social networking/media 16 2.32 0.91

∗Rating scale ranges from 1 to 5: 1 as most important and 5 as no importance.



valuable patterns to help make better decisions. At present, big data anddata mining are enormously popular trends in business and research devel-opment in China. China’s internet companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, andTencent have collected massive amounts of data and employed the data fortheir business (Swanson, 2015).

Another important technology in China, ranked fourth, is software asa service (SaaS). SaaS is based on cloud computing and allows softwaredelivery through an internet connection. Employees are able to utilize thesoftware and access the data from anywhere and thus work more effortlesslyand efficiently. Given a web browser and internet connection, users canperform their work immediately and do not need to install any software.

With the large amounts of data available to companies, traditional busi-ness models are not effective any more. Business intelligence and analytics(ranked fifth) can help decision-makers find revealing insights and makeinformed decisions. Appropriate analysis supported by business intelligencetools is able to support companies in making a variety of operational andstrategic decisions. Chinese organizations have now become aware of thepower of business intelligence and analytics, and have put forth great effortto promote the development and use of such tools.

Social networking and media are ranked last in our sample. This is a bitsurprising as social networking and media can be considered effective waysto reach potential customers and clients at a very low cost. Weibo andWechat, which are the two largest social networking platforms in China,seem to have exerted important influence on individual lives. The two appli-cations are also useful tools for branding on social media in China. How-ever, Weibo and Wechat marketing started only a few years ago and maynot have directly impacted individual IT employees. In addition, for mostChinese people, social networking sites are thought to be tools to provideindividuals with instant message services and entertainment.

6.7 Individual IT Employee Issues

Table 6.4 shows the summary of the responses about individual issues. Sub-jects were asked to rate how much they agree with general statements aboutindividual job issues based on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (stronglyagree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Thus a score below 3 shows agreement withthe corresponding item and above 3 shows disagreement. This assessmentwas made on seven areas of concern and constituted 28 items. The seven



areas are: job satisfaction, work pressure, work–life balance, workload andburnout, sense of accomplishment, threats to one’s job, and career plans.

The percentages of employees who agree or disagree on individual issuesare shown in Table 6.5. As can be seen from Tables 6.4 and 6.5, most respon-dents are satisfied with their current jobs and feel a sense of accomplishmentat work. Generally, employees in the IT occupation receive higher pay andenjoy a better work environment than peers in other occupations. In addi-tion, most IT companies provide their employees with better benefits, such

Table 6.4: Individual IT Employee Issues in China

Mean Std.Items Rating∗ Deviation

Job SatisfactionIn general, I like working here. 2.23 0.83All in all, I am satisfied with my current job. 2.33 0.79In general, I don’t like my current job (reversed). 1.65 1.10

Work PressureI feel that the number of requests, problems or complaints

that I deal with at work is more than expected.3.02 1.07

I feel that the amount of work I do interferes with how wellit is done.

3.07 1.01

I feel busy or rushed at work. 2.71 0.91I feel pressured at work. 2.69 0.89

Work–Life BalanceThere is a blurring of boundaries between my job and my

home life.2.90 1.00

My work-related responsibilities create conflicts with myhome responsibilities.

3.04 1.04

I do not get everything done at home because I find myselfcompleting job-related work.

3.07 1.04

Workload and BurnoutI feel drained from activities at work. 3.16 0.98I feel tired from my work activities. 3.14 0.99Working all day is a strain for me. 3.20 1.01I feel burned out from my work activities. 3.27 0.97

Sense of AccomplishmentI feel I’m making an effective contribution to what this

organization does.2.32 0.85

In my opinion, I do a good job. 2.31 0.85I have accomplished many worthwhile things in this job. 2.28 0.85At my work, I feel confident that I am effective at getting

things done.2.29 0.86

(Continued)



Table 6.4: (Continued)

Mean Std.Items Rating∗ Deviation

Threats to One’s JobI am worried that future technology advancements may pose

a threat to my job.2.91 0.97

I believe that other people may be able to perform my workactivities.

2.76 0.94

I am concerned that my job may be eliminated soon. 3.09 0.99I am concerned that my job may be outsourced soon. 3.20 1.01

Career PlansI will be with this organization 1 year from now. 2.58 0.96I will take steps during the next year to secure a job at a

different organization.3.11 0.99

I will be with this organization 5 years from now. 2.95 0.99I will be working in the IT field 1 year from now. 2.10 0.98I will take steps during the next year to secure a job outside

the IT field.3.50 1.09

I will be working in the IT field 5 years from now. 2.43 0.97

∗Rating scale ranges from 1 to 5: 1 as strongly agree, to 5 as strongly disagree.

Table 6.5: Percentages of Employees in Agreement or Disagreement

Areas of ConcernAgree (mean

ratings < 3), %Neutral (meanratings = 3), %

Disagree (meanratings > 3), %

Job Satisfaction 88.4 7.7 3.9Work Pressure 45.2 16.1 38.7Work–Life Balance 39.7 21.6 38.7Workload and Burnout 31.6 17.1 51.3Sense of Accomplishment 77.7 11.3 11.0Threats to One’s Job 33.9 30.3 35.8Career Plans 57.7 21.9 20.3

as an employee assistant program. They also make a strong effort to furtherdevelop employees’ skills by providing professional learning opportunitiesand comprehensive training. Furthermore, IT organizations generally offeremployees two pathways for their development; a management developmentpathway and a professional development pathway. With such an environ-ment and development opportunities, most employees are pleased to work inthe IT industry and have a high level of satisfaction. Not only satisfaction,these employees have a high sense of accomplishment and they feel they aredoing a good job and making an effective contribution to the organization.



In terms of work pressure, a moderate number of the respondents(45.2%) reported feeling pressured and rushed at work. Chinese companieshave to face increased competition and as such, companies may encourageor require employees to work overtime and take responsibilities for unex-pected tasks. In terms of work–life balance, the participants did not reportsignificant conflicts. Similar results are found in the area of workload andburnout. Basically, many companies organize a variety of employee recre-ational activities to help relax their staff and enrich their after-work lives.Some companies even allow employees to work flexibly from anywhere.

The average ratings for threats to job were in the middle and aboutone-third were concerned, one-third not concerned, and another one-thirdneutral. On the one hand, IT workers are worried to be replaced due to theincreasing number of IT graduates and the rapid development of technolo-gies every year. On the other hand, a large workforce in the IT industry isstill needed to promote economic growth and keep IT systems running andgrowing. There are also a great number of employment opportunities for ITemployees and it is easy for a skilled IT worker to find a high-paying job.

The career plans and turnover of IT employees are mirrored by their highlevels of satisfaction and accomplishment. A majority (57.7%) indicatedthat they would not change their current jobs in the IT field and only20.3% were likely to change their career in the near future. Individuals faceboth challenges and opportunities in the IT field and yet they can choosetheir own career path if they are talented and competent in informationtechnologies. Generally, most employees in IT companies are satisfied withtheir jobs for the relatively high salaries and comfortable work environmentand do not have plans to change their jobs any time soon. Only a minoritymay be concerned about unemployment due to fierce competition in thejob market.

6.8 Conclusion

This chapter presented the organizational, technological and individualissues of IT employees in China. Among IT-related organizational issues,IT reliability and efficiency, security and privacy and IT strategic planningare among the pressing concerns. The top issues in technology included:networks/telecommunications, big data systems, data mining, software asa service, and business intelligence/analytics. The Chinese IT workers seemto be satisfied with their current jobs and had little desire to change jobs.Most of them had a high sense of self-efficacy and sense of accomplishment



at work. The IT employees believed they had a moderate amount of pres-sure at work with a healthy work–life balance. In general, these results bodewell for the Chinese IT worker.

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Information Technology Issues in China